Please help WLM to support homeless people and vulnerable residents during the COVID-19 pandemic

News provided by WLM on Monday 11th May 2020

Please help WLM to support rough sleepers during these extremely challenging and unprecedented times

WLM is facing a triple blow of reduced income, increased costs and very vulnerable residents. We need emergency support to continue supporting people in our care during these extremely challenging and unprecedented times.

We closed our Night Shelter for rough sleepers at WLM Seymour Place to avoid increasing the spread of disease and moved the service users from there and elsewhere into hotels and bedsits. We continue to support them, remotely, to move forward in their lives but many are now destitute and requiring emergency food vouchers. Our WLM Seymour Place premises have been transformed into a Homelessness Workers Clinic by the NHS, with teams who are supporting homeless people working from there.

In our residential projects and care homes, we house some very vulnerable people whose potential susceptibility to this pandemic means we have to do all we can to support them to isolate and keep them safe. Many suffered trauma in the past and have underlying health conditions. Others were in the midst of a crisis before COVID-19 and this situation has compounded that. They are struggling to understand what is happening, are deeply anxious and at risk of self-harm.

WLM’s CEO, Roger Clark, says:

“The COVID-19 virus has made it incredibly challenging for WLM to fulfil its mission of empowering people affected by homelessness, poverty and trauma to make positive changes in their lives. Our costs are sky-rocketing as we staff and manage infection control in our crucial residential services. Any donations that we receive at this time will be very gratefully received as they will help us to keep people engaged and safe”.

We all remain vigilant and are sticking with the plan to protect the health and wellbeing of our residents and staff by ensuring that we limit unnecessary access to our services to stop the spread of COVID-19. We are actively engaging with partners and commissioners to make sure that our services are at the forefront of their minds and we are constantly undertaking deep cleans in our WLM residential premises.

We are incurring spiralling additional costs and our fundraising challenge grows daily. None of our premises can operate as normal and we expect this situation to continue for many months.

Your financial contribution will help us keep our homeless service users and vulnerable residents occupied, supported and safe from COVID-19. Please donate at: